


What is art, anyway?

by tangiblewhimsy



Series: Street Kids [14]
Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-10 16:23:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangiblewhimsy/pseuds/tangiblewhimsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sho met Satoshi</p>
            </blockquote>





	What is art, anyway?

Sho's first apartment was not a dump. Really! It was in a rougher neighborhood than he'd first imagined, and tap water wasn't really consumable. There was water damage in the corners of the ceiling and right outside his bedroom door there was a broken floorboard beneath the carpet. But even with all of that it wasn't so horrible.

It was spacious for what he paid, and the heating and air conditioning both worked. The window in his front room needed to be re-sealed, but the view looked out onto a part of his street where a flower cart stood most hours of the day.

The location was also convenient for getting to work. Just a walk and a train ride away! He could even take his bike on days he felt like hauling it down the stairs.

And for as low-rent as the area was, it was usually very clean. Each day, to and from work, there were well-scrubbed streets and sidewalks, cared-for signs. It was an area that liked to take care of itself in an earnest, if... _modest_ , way.

Or at least it _used to_. That was before the murals started.

Sho honestly didn't see the first few. He'd been told about them, and if pressed to remember by a neighbor he might be able to recall a few splotches of color on a wall as he passed. But he was usually distracted or tired. Who really spent the time to look at dingy walls?

But then the painter began getting ambitious.

The corner store near Sho's apartment had just repainted its outside. The building must have been decades old at the youngest, and likely hadn't been painted since it was originally built. The new, clean coat of cream, while boring, was a measured improvement. Sho had remembered talking with the morning clerk about it, the change had been so striking.

It had lasted maybe three days before an entire side of the building was changed overnight.

Walking along to get himself some milk one morning, Sho almost didn't register the change. He'd had a passing thought of, 'Ah, nifty!' before he remembered _where_ the picture was. Doing a doubletake, Sho stopped on the sidewalk and openly stared.

The moon and sun hung over the ocean, where waves swirled so high that the stars were glints of light from the scales of fish. There were musical notes hanging from the clutched grasp of sea birds and almost on the horizon was a tiny boat with a shadowy figure huddled over a fishing pole.

If the scale of the image wasn't enough to capture Sho's interest, the raw colors were. Whoever had done it had used a limited palette. The light colors were layers of white and yellow, the darks blue and green. Sparingly mixed in were reds to create pinks and orange on the side of the sky with the sun, or purples to deepen the shadows of the sea. The mural was loud and it was striking. It was graffiti and was going to be washed away, but... It was _art_.

A few days later the convenience store owner had the wall painted over again. Sho was sad to see it go, though he understood why.

As weeks passed, however, Sho began to see paint in other places. Cheerful dashes of yellow, strong wells of red, brilliant swirls of green. This time a bird, this time a man playing a saxophone. A squirrel confessing to a tree, a thug smoking a cigarette, a fish living in a teacup. Each time the pictures were different and each time they were gone within days.

Sho began to wonder about who was making them. He knew it couldn't be someone that lived in the area, because sometimes weeks would go by without one picture. But whenever the artist was back in town, he'd leave his mark.

Sho found him by accident, really. He hadn't been actively looking for the man, or anything. There was an incident with one of the street vendors and Sho had been forced to take another route to work. He'd never expected to see a short man with fading dyed hair standing in the middle of a street at mid-morning, a can of spray paint in hand.

There was silence as they regarded one another for a handful of moments.

"You!" Sho had no other words as he realized what he'd stumbled upon. He couldn't stop the smile that crept on to his face.

The artist stared back at him with blank, sleepy eyes. Lowering his can, he turned and faced Sho directly.

He looked young. Impressively young. He was also a little gritty, paint and dirt smeared across his jacket and jeans, flecks of pigment dusting the backs of his hands. And, Sho noted, he looked at a loss for what to do with himself. Or maybe, Sho would think later, he'd just looked lost.

"You're the one who paints, right?" Sho asked, trying to make the boy understand he wasn't angry.

The artist looked at the can in his hand, to the wall he was working on, then back to Sho. Sho felt heat rise in his face as, without even saying a word, this guy had just told him he'd asked an obvious question.

"I- I like your work," he pressed on as no verbal reply came. "The big on you did two streets over? The one where the lady had a dog hiding under her hat? I thought that was really cool."

Blinking in confusion, the guy finally gave a nod. "Thanks." Sho felt pride bubble in his chest as the soft, quiet voice answered him.

"My name's Sakurai Sho," he bowed a little, still grinning.

"Satoshi," the man returned the bow, the dullness in his gaze ebbing.

"Satoshi," Sho repeated, taking a few steps forward. "What're you working on today?"

Stepping aside so that Sho could get a better look, Satoshi turned to face the wall and his incomplete piece.

"A rainbow."


End file.
